Leslie J. Bisson, MD, is senior author on a paper that finds patient weight is not a statistically significant factor on clinical outcomes of arthroscopic partial meniscectomy.

Weight Not a Factor in Outcome of Arthroscopic Partial Meniscectomy

Published
February 22, 2018

Department of
Orthopaedics researchers have published a study that finds
there is no statistically significant difference in clinical
outcomes after arthroscopic partial meniscectomy among normal
weight and obese patients.

“The most important finding of this study was that being overweight and being obese were not associated with outcomes of pain, stiffness, knee symptoms, function, activity, quality of life or joint effusion.”

Related Links

No Statistical Difference in Surgery Outcomes

Obese patients are defined as those having a body mass index
(BMI) greater than 30, overweight patients are those with a BMI
from 25 to 30, while normal weight patients are those with a BMI
less than 25.

Published in The Journal of Arthroscopic and Related Surgery, the
study found no statistical difference in outcomes between
patients one year after surgery.

Despite the presence of worse pain, physical function and
quality of life scores and decreased flexion among obese patients
prior to arthroscopic partial meniscectomy, results showed no
statistically significant differences in clinical outcomes between
normal weight and obese patients at one-year follow-up.

The researchers noted the ChAMP trial offered a distinct
opportunity to examine the association between BMI and outcomes in
patients without radiographic evidence of substantial degenerative
joint disease because this population was excluded from the
trial.

Results Provide Reassurance to Orthopaedic Surgeons

Senior author Leslie
J. Bisson, MD, June A. and Eugene R. Mindell, MD, Professor and
Chair of orthopaedics, says the results should enable orthopaedic
surgeons to feel confident in the short term that their
patients’ body weight won’t affect outcomes.

“The most important finding of this study was that being
overweight and being obese were not associated with outcomes of
pain, stiffness, knee symptoms, function, activity, quality of life
or joint effusion,” Bisson says.

“Past studies have found increased BMI to be associated
with worse outcomes following arthroscopic meniscal surgery, but
these studies may have been confounded by the facts that higher BMI
is associated with chondral lesions and that chondral lesions are
associated with poorer outcomes after arthroscopy,” he
adds.

256 Patients of Varying Weight Involved in Study

Study participants were recruited by six sports medicine
fellowship–trained orthopaedic surgeons at a single center
and consented to participate.

A total of 50 normal weight, 100 overweight and 106 obese
patients were studied in the final analysis.

All patients in the study underwent arthroscopic partial
meniscectomy of the medial meniscus, lateral meniscus, or both
menisci, at which time the articular cartilage was examined.

Several Jacobs School Faculty Members are Co-Authors

Melissa A. Kluczynski, clinical research associate in the
Department of Orthopaedics, is the paper’s first author.